I wanted to use our kayaks more this year than we did last year so I asked Mom if she was interested in paddling a section of Lake St. Clair. She said she was always interested in kayaking but never had the time or the equipment to go. Ben was working so I asked her if she wanted to go with me since I had nothing going on that day. She said yes but was kinda nervous because she has never been in a kayak before. I told her it was pretty easy, and she will get the hang of it once she is in it.
Our summer was taking its sweet time showing up, so it was another bland overcast summer afternoon for our hottest month of the year. I told her to meet up at my house and we will throw the kayaks into the red truck, so we didn't have to work hard strapping them to the Escape. It's difficult when you're short. I had to figure out the Discover Pass situation since we didn't have one for the truck. I figured out something and threw it on the dash.
Mom showed up just as I finished putting the kayaks into the truck. I tied a red piece of fabric to the end of each of them since they stuck out the back. I grabbed my backpack (full of replacement containers, logbooks and baggies, just in case), and headed down Yelm Highway. I had a section of the lake I wanted to do since I had a handful of caches left until I blacked out the lake.
I spent the night before going over Ohjoy's paddle caches to see if I qualified for them all. I think I finally did so I added the cache to my list of ones to grab for a total of four.
We arrived at the boat launch and there were quite a few people fishing but enough parking spots to park the truck once we unloaded the kayaks. I had Mom hang out with the kayaks and paddles while I went to park the truck. We scooted them into the lake, and I helped Mom into the pink kayak while I got into Ben's orange one. Once we were in, I helped her adjust her paddles, so they weren't awkward when she propelled herself forward with them.
We paddled north on the lake for our first cache, Eeyore's Postal Code Challenge - a Paddling Cache (GC3TGMW). It had been replaced in June by a couple of Ohjoy's friends who were out doing maintenance for her, so I knew it was going to be there. We approached the mossy Maple tree, and I could see it hanging from the limb in front of me. Mom paddled around while I got out the pen to sign our names. I signed Mom's even though she might not qualify to log it yet.
I pointed to Mom where we were going next. We paddled southeast on the edge of the most eastern part of the lake. We saw ducks, geese and lily pads with flowers blooming on the top of them. There were some people on paddle boards and others cruising the lake in their pontoon boats and kayaks.
Paddle Dee Dee, Paddle Dee Dum (GC8C5J4) was a little further south of where I've been before to grab caches in the past. I've kind of ignored this part of the lake for a while. Mostly, because I didn't have a great vessel to get me there and we just didn't have the time to go get them. Over the past couple summers we've had some time to come out here. This was also an easy grab from my kayak and was glad it was there and had not gone missing like some of the others have in this lake.
Mom asked me where to next. I pointed over by where the large tree was sticking into the water about a quarter of a mile from where we were. We started paddling. There were a couple people fishing nearby as we passed them.
Hernando's Hideaway 2.0 (GC8YXX4) was a bit harder to find than the others. I actually got out of my kayak becasue I thought it was going to be on land. I was wrong. I got back in the kayak (of course I got scratched by a sticker bush) and saw it was hiding amongst the Ceder tree limbs. I signed our names on it and we moved on to our last one.
I had solved this puzzle cache, Procrastination II - True Confessions (GC7ZRY9) last summer. I went as far as to make my own pieces of the puzzle so I could rearrange them to figure out the coordinates. For some reason, I was doing something wrong, and I could not figure it out. Ohjoy knew that I was looking for her caches out on the various lakes in Thurston County and stopped by one day to drop off replacement parts for them just in case they weren't there when we went to look for them. She also gave me a hint on how to solve this puzzle. She said that I had one of the pieces going the wrong way and adjusted it for me. I thanked her and she thanked me for checking up on her paddle caches. Ben and I went out last summer and fixed a couple of them but didn't get to this cache for some reason.
Mom and I paddled to ground zero and started looking. This one was higher up on the Cedar tree, so I actually had to maneuver my kayak just right, grab onto something and try to balance standing in the kayak to grab this one...it was wobbly. I almost fell in but adjusted accordingly. I got our names on it and then stood back up to screw the bottom back onto the lid.
We paddled to the other boat launch because Mom didn't want to overdo her first time out. I told her that I would get the truck and drive it across the street so we could load the kayaks up. She said that was fine.
I grabbed the red truck and backed it down the steep boat launch. There were some people in the lake swimming with floaties. I thought they were crazy because it wasn't that warm outside to be swimming. We got the kayaks into the back of the truck, got the red cloth tied to the ends, unscrewed the paddles and headed back towards my house. I asked Mom if she had fun with her first time kayaking and she wanted to get her own kayak, plus she was glad she didn't fall in!
I told her once we get more organized with everything, we could do more kayaking next summer. Let's just hope summer doesn't take forever to start in 2023. This summer seemed so short and disappointing.
Next Adventure: Ward Lake Paddle Caching
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